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Europe Just Voted in Favor of Making iPhone and Android Use the Same Charger

48 points by ArtDev 7y ago

ArtDev 7y ago
Its fine if USB-C is the new standard.. as long as its actually a real standard. Its funny that we need a law for this, but we really do.
- anoncake 7y ago
  The EU tried to get the manufacturers to cooperate without a formal law but Apple continued to apple.
  - olliej 7y ago
    Indeed, think, if apple had only kowtowed a few years ago we could be using the wonderful mini-usb forever. A single plug means never migrating from whatever is standardized now, because doing so would me violating the law. Never mind the bizarre obsession the usb group had with making as many holes to get stuff stuck in as possible, nor the excessively loose tolerances in the spec. But hey, now we get to have usb-c forever, with no way for any company to move to anything else.
    - ISL 7y ago
      I doubt that the new law would prevent USB-C and a new plug. If the new plug turns out to be awesome (magsafe, anyone?), voters could clamor for it to become a new standard...
      - prostheticvamp 7y ago
        Excellent. Now I need European regulators to allow for me to see innovation in luxury consumer products. They couldn’t find something useful to do with their time?
      - olliej 7y ago
        nope, that means for (take your example, MagSafe) to ever be shipped the EU would have to create new legislation for it. That means you'd be unlikely to ever see something like MagSafe be shipped. Similarly, for anyone to iterate on usb-c they'd have to get a new spec standardized, and then go to the EU parliament to get that new spec bought in. The moment that happens you're back to multiple plugs. I still don't understand what problem they think they're solving with this - the first change is millions of cables and devices become defunct through legally mandated obsolescence. The next change is what...?
        WanderPanda 7y ago
        Next change is building a wall so we citizens can‘t escape the hell they are creating with their abundance of good intentions. Further steps: -US led international coalition needs to intervene to free the europeans from their overlords -The europeans need to rebuild everything from scratch once again -British people laughing up their sleeves
    - kikoreis 7y ago
      I thought this law specified the requirement for a standard, but didn't enforce a specific one. Meaning that industry simply needs to come together to define a common connector, and they can over time develop and adopt new standards through consensus.
      - anoncake 7y ago
        Yeah, at most the law will mandate USB without specifying a maximum version. It's ridiculous how people here thinks the EU is a bunch of control freaks, especially considering they waited for 10 years if the industry could get it shit together without help.
hydroreadsstuff 7y ago
My guess is that Apple is getting rid of the charger rather than supporting USB, in favor of wireless charging.
- ocdtrekkie 7y ago
  Androids and iPhones both support Qi charging. They can arguably continue to support Lightning indefinitely as a legacy accessory port. Recently got an iPhone and never even unboxed my Lightning cable, I already have wireless chargers plentifully spread from my Windows Phone.
  - utahcon 7y ago
    I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple argue that Lightning is in fact a form of "USB" and thus Lightning should be the standard or... we are already compliant with your nonsense laws
noodlesUK 7y ago
My experience is that there already is a universal charger that works with almost all phones made in the past couple years. That is a Qi inductive charging plate. I suspect Apple will be ditching the lightning cable fairly soon, and will be replacing it with wireless charging as the only charging solution. I currently have a snazzy Qi mount in my car that works great, and a plate by my bed. The only downside is if I want to watch a video whilst charging or similar, it’s nearly impossible to do that with current plates/docks. These chargers work with my phone (iPhone 8) and my partner’s phone (Samsung), and I couldn’t be happier with them.
- qsymmachus 7y ago
  That's a good point, but I think it would be a shame if wireless charging completely replaced wired, because it's much less efficient. Something like 20-40% of input energy is wasted when using wireless charging versus a wire. If every existing phone switched to wireless charging, that would cause a non-trivial increase in total power usage.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Perhaps an acceptable trade off for the substantial reduction in e-waste. You can always generate more clean power.
  - kickling 7y ago
    Not saying it's entirely unrelevant, but when looking at energy consumption by production and by usage of smartphones, the usage basically consumes no energy at all (https://imgur.com/VHpJ5et https://imgur.com/VHpJ5et). That is probably because batteries can hold a very limited amount of energy and therefore mobile software is developed to use very little electricity. But on the other hand, less energy efficient chargers wont help this. I just mean it's not the big problem about our smartphones energy consumption.
    - kickling 7y ago
      Sorry, meant co2 emissions, not energy use.
ydnaclementine 7y ago
What's the punishment, a big fine (one time?), can't sell in EU? (linked articles don't clearly state) It's great they did this, but we'll see if it's just lawmakers playing house
- movedx 7y ago
  Is it great that they did this? I think the EU has a lot of good qualities, but this might stifle innovation. Think about it... What if I create a new charging cable that's super fast charging, 10x safer, supports massive transfer rates and so on and so forth... how do I test that in the market? I can't, because it would be illegal to sell it. This is a law that, to me, seems good on the surface and potentially products consumers, but actually it prevents people/companies trying new ideas and using the market to test them.
  - Nullabillity 7y ago
    > What if I create a new charging cable that's super fast charging, 10x safer, supports massive transfer rates and so on and so forth... how do I test that in the market? I can't, because it would be illegal to sell it. Reuse USB-C, negotiate faster power deliver/alternate data modes, fall back to plain USB for other chargers. Not a big problem.
    - movedx 7y ago
      That's my point: what if USB-C, as a form factor, isn't suitable? And what if it would be a waste of space/materials as your connect was 10x smaller and more efficient physically too? But you raise a good point: I'm forced to use the same physical interface (USB-C) so I can't innovate in the physical realm neither. I can't innovate/test a new protocol if it requires a new connector and I can't keep the protocols in place but innovate on the physical aspects neither. Nice.
  - ta999999171 7y ago
    You mean like all of the innovation that Apple has made with their connectors...that they only allow in their devices? Is that really "innovation" for the commons? Or just more proprietary products?
zepto 7y ago
This seems like a lot of weird ideas unconnected from actual practice. For example who throws away their old charger when they get a new device? Why would anyone do that when you can have more than one charger in convenient places, have one for travel etc? Is there any research behind any of this?
- mattlondon 7y ago
  I have thrown away loads. I need 2 or 3 maybe. I would easily have 30 or 40 by now if I didn't regularly take them to the dump and chick them in the electronic bin. All of my wall sockets have USB charging sockets built in already anyway. Often you get crap ones bundled with stuff anyway - e.g. 500ma or 1a output.
  - Yetanfou 7y ago
    Why do you buy so many devices which come with chargers - i.e. phones and tablets, mostly? I'm on my 4th 'smart phone' in total, counting from the original Nokia N-GAGE (the 'taco phone', got it because it was a cheap and easy way into the 'smart' phone world). I replaced the Nokia because I cracked its screen, the Qtek S200 because I ran out of replacement batteries, the Motorola Defy+ is still in use as a 'work phone' and the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 is my current main device. Add to that 2 tablets (plus an early third one (Ainol Novo 8 Advanced) which charges off a 9V adapter, still works) and I'm up to 5 USB chargers (plus a Nokia charger) in 16 years. Also, don't take those chargers to the dump, instead take them to a thrift store or some charity. They can sell the things for a few €, the things get reused, everybody is happy.
    - utahcon 7y ago
      clearly he is using burners, and the governments are now on to him. Sucker.
  - zepto 7y ago
    I see - I assume these aren’t iPhones? I guess that raises the issue that iPhones have a much longer usable life too - most of then get handed down at least once or twice.
Kikawala 7y ago
This Vice article is confusing because of the interchanging use of Charging device and Charging cable. So what is it, the cable or the wall wart that has to be standardized?
spullara 7y ago
I believe this is only talking about the piece that connects the charging cable to the electrical system. Apple already ships a charger that has a female USB-C on one side and male electrical plug on the other which will satisfy this proposal. You would then still use a USB-C to lightning cable to charge the phone but you could reuse the the charger itself between android and apple.
chwilson 7y ago
Didn't this also happen years ago with the EU trying to force Apple to use Micro USB? I believe Apple got around it by selling Lightning to Micro USB adapters in their stores.
option 7y ago
will they require to use the same charger (as now) 10 years from now? What about 20, 30 years from now?
- utahcon 7y ago
  Had the same thought. In theory as long as future connectors fit the same form factor (backward compatible) it shouldn't matter and USB 3.1 has plenty of head room as far as the protocol goes.
justizin 7y ago
it's a real problem, but it also seems unlikely that we would have USB-C without lightnight, basically every generation of apple's various connectors have driven improvements in USB.
- anon73044 7y ago
  ....so....why isn't Apple contributing to the USB working group instead of making a competing product?
dang 7y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22204174 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22204174
djrogers 7y ago
> “ One of the most ubiquitous pieces of e-waste is device chargers. We seem them as disposable because every new device comes with one. Why not just toss the old one out and let it rot in a landfill? Every new upgrade means a new charger. But that may be about to change.“ Is this 2004, when every charger is hardwired to it’s transformer? Nope - last time I checked my iPhone and android devices all shipped with the same USB charger but they have 4 different cables (lightning, mini usb, micro usb, and usb-c). Are those cables a huge contributor to e-waste? Also, we’ve been through this before - what would have happened if the EU was successful last time and we were all forced to use micro-usb? No usb c, that’s what.
- utahcon 7y ago
  why not force the companies to pay a bounty for these "useless e-waste" instead of forcing them to stop innovating? Maybe they are forced to pay $0.05 (or more) per charger found in the waste. Those that have been collected are sent to the manufacturer for repurposing, at their cost.

48 points by ArtDev 7y ago

Its fine if USB-C is the new standard.. as long as its actually a real standard. Its funny that we need a law for this, but we really do.

anoncake 7y ago
The EU tried to get the manufacturers to cooperate without a formal law but Apple continued to apple.
- olliej 7y ago
  Indeed, think, if apple had only kowtowed a few years ago we could be using the wonderful mini-usb forever. A single plug means never migrating from whatever is standardized now, because doing so would me violating the law. Never mind the bizarre obsession the usb group had with making as many holes to get stuff stuck in as possible, nor the excessively loose tolerances in the spec. But hey, now we get to have usb-c forever, with no way for any company to move to anything else.
  - ISL 7y ago
    I doubt that the new law would prevent USB-C and a new plug. If the new plug turns out to be awesome (magsafe, anyone?), voters could clamor for it to become a new standard...
    - prostheticvamp 7y ago
      Excellent. Now I need European regulators to allow for me to see innovation in luxury consumer products. They couldn’t find something useful to do with their time?
    - olliej 7y ago
      nope, that means for (take your example, MagSafe) to ever be shipped the EU would have to create new legislation for it. That means you'd be unlikely to ever see something like MagSafe be shipped. Similarly, for anyone to iterate on usb-c they'd have to get a new spec standardized, and then go to the EU parliament to get that new spec bought in. The moment that happens you're back to multiple plugs. I still don't understand what problem they think they're solving with this - the first change is millions of cables and devices become defunct through legally mandated obsolescence. The next change is what...?
      - WanderPanda 7y ago
        Next change is building a wall so we citizens can‘t escape the hell they are creating with their abundance of good intentions. Further steps: -US led international coalition needs to intervene to free the europeans from their overlords -The europeans need to rebuild everything from scratch once again -British people laughing up their sleeves
  - kikoreis 7y ago
    I thought this law specified the requirement for a standard, but didn't enforce a specific one. Meaning that industry simply needs to come together to define a common connector, and they can over time develop and adopt new standards through consensus.
    - anoncake 7y ago
      Yeah, at most the law will mandate USB without specifying a maximum version. It's ridiculous how people here thinks the EU is a bunch of control freaks, especially considering they waited for 10 years if the industry could get it shit together without help.

hydroreadsstuff 7y ago

My guess is that Apple is getting rid of the charger rather than supporting USB, in favor of wireless charging.

ocdtrekkie 7y ago
Androids and iPhones both support Qi charging. They can arguably continue to support Lightning indefinitely as a legacy accessory port. Recently got an iPhone and never even unboxed my Lightning cable, I already have wireless chargers plentifully spread from my Windows Phone.
- utahcon 7y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple argue that Lightning is in fact a form of "USB" and thus Lightning should be the standard or... we are already compliant with your nonsense laws

noodlesUK 7y ago

My experience is that there already is a universal charger that works with almost all phones made in the past couple years. That is a Qi inductive charging plate. I suspect Apple will be ditching the lightning cable fairly soon, and will be replacing it with wireless charging as the only charging solution. I currently have a snazzy Qi mount in my car that works great, and a plate by my bed. The only downside is if I want to watch a video whilst charging or similar, it’s nearly impossible to do that with current plates/docks. These chargers work with my phone (iPhone 8) and my partner’s phone (Samsung), and I couldn’t be happier with them.

qsymmachus 7y ago
That's a good point, but I think it would be a shame if wireless charging completely replaced wired, because it's much less efficient. Something like 20-40% of input energy is wasted when using wireless charging versus a wire. If every existing phone switched to wireless charging, that would cause a non-trivial increase in total power usage.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Perhaps an acceptable trade off for the substantial reduction in e-waste. You can always generate more clean power.
- kickling 7y ago
  Not saying it's entirely unrelevant, but when looking at energy consumption by production and by usage of smartphones, the usage basically consumes no energy at all (https://imgur.com/VHpJ5et https://imgur.com/VHpJ5et). That is probably because batteries can hold a very limited amount of energy and therefore mobile software is developed to use very little electricity. But on the other hand, less energy efficient chargers wont help this. I just mean it's not the big problem about our smartphones energy consumption.
  - kickling 7y ago
    Sorry, meant co2 emissions, not energy use.

ydnaclementine 7y ago

What's the punishment, a big fine (one time?), can't sell in EU? (linked articles don't clearly state) It's great they did this, but we'll see if it's just lawmakers playing house

movedx 7y ago
Is it great that they did this? I think the EU has a lot of good qualities, but this might stifle innovation. Think about it... What if I create a new charging cable that's super fast charging, 10x safer, supports massive transfer rates and so on and so forth... how do I test that in the market? I can't, because it would be illegal to sell it. This is a law that, to me, seems good on the surface and potentially products consumers, but actually it prevents people/companies trying new ideas and using the market to test them.
- Nullabillity 7y ago
  > What if I create a new charging cable that's super fast charging, 10x safer, supports massive transfer rates and so on and so forth... how do I test that in the market? I can't, because it would be illegal to sell it. Reuse USB-C, negotiate faster power deliver/alternate data modes, fall back to plain USB for other chargers. Not a big problem.
  - movedx 7y ago
    That's my point: what if USB-C, as a form factor, isn't suitable? And what if it would be a waste of space/materials as your connect was 10x smaller and more efficient physically too? But you raise a good point: I'm forced to use the same physical interface (USB-C) so I can't innovate in the physical realm neither. I can't innovate/test a new protocol if it requires a new connector and I can't keep the protocols in place but innovate on the physical aspects neither. Nice.
- ta999999171 7y ago
  You mean like all of the innovation that Apple has made with their connectors...that they only allow in their devices? Is that really "innovation" for the commons? Or just more proprietary products?

zepto 7y ago

This seems like a lot of weird ideas unconnected from actual practice. For example who throws away their old charger when they get a new device? Why would anyone do that when you can have more than one charger in convenient places, have one for travel etc? Is there any research behind any of this?

mattlondon 7y ago
I have thrown away loads. I need 2 or 3 maybe. I would easily have 30 or 40 by now if I didn't regularly take them to the dump and chick them in the electronic bin. All of my wall sockets have USB charging sockets built in already anyway. Often you get crap ones bundled with stuff anyway - e.g. 500ma or 1a output.
- Yetanfou 7y ago
  Why do you buy so many devices which come with chargers - i.e. phones and tablets, mostly? I'm on my 4th 'smart phone' in total, counting from the original Nokia N-GAGE (the 'taco phone', got it because it was a cheap and easy way into the 'smart' phone world). I replaced the Nokia because I cracked its screen, the Qtek S200 because I ran out of replacement batteries, the Motorola Defy+ is still in use as a 'work phone' and the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 is my current main device. Add to that 2 tablets (plus an early third one (Ainol Novo 8 Advanced) which charges off a 9V adapter, still works) and I'm up to 5 USB chargers (plus a Nokia charger) in 16 years. Also, don't take those chargers to the dump, instead take them to a thrift store or some charity. They can sell the things for a few €, the things get reused, everybody is happy.
  - utahcon 7y ago
    clearly he is using burners, and the governments are now on to him. Sucker.
- zepto 7y ago
  I see - I assume these aren’t iPhones? I guess that raises the issue that iPhones have a much longer usable life too - most of then get handed down at least once or twice.

Kikawala 7y ago

This Vice article is confusing because of the interchanging use of Charging device and Charging cable. So what is it, the cable or the wall wart that has to be standardized?

spullara 7y ago

I believe this is only talking about the piece that connects the charging cable to the electrical system. Apple already ships a charger that has a female USB-C on one side and male electrical plug on the other which will satisfy this proposal. You would then still use a USB-C to lightning cable to charge the phone but you could reuse the the charger itself between android and apple.

chwilson 7y ago

Didn't this also happen years ago with the EU trying to force Apple to use Micro USB? I believe Apple got around it by selling Lightning to Micro USB adapters in their stores.

option 7y ago

will they require to use the same charger (as now) 10 years from now? What about 20, 30 years from now?

utahcon 7y ago
Had the same thought. In theory as long as future connectors fit the same form factor (backward compatible) it shouldn't matter and USB 3.1 has plenty of head room as far as the protocol goes.

justizin 7y ago

it's a real problem, but it also seems unlikely that we would have USB-C without lightnight, basically every generation of apple's various connectors have driven improvements in USB.

anon73044 7y ago
....so....why isn't Apple contributing to the USB working group instead of making a competing product?

dang 7y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22204174 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22204174

djrogers 7y ago

> “ One of the most ubiquitous pieces of e-waste is device chargers. We seem them as disposable because every new device comes with one. Why not just toss the old one out and let it rot in a landfill? Every new upgrade means a new charger. But that may be about to change.“ Is this 2004, when every charger is hardwired to it’s transformer? Nope - last time I checked my iPhone and android devices all shipped with the same USB charger but they have 4 different cables (lightning, mini usb, micro usb, and usb-c). Are those cables a huge contributor to e-waste? Also, we’ve been through this before - what would have happened if the EU was successful last time and we were all forced to use micro-usb? No usb c, that’s what.

utahcon 7y ago
why not force the companies to pay a bounty for these "useless e-waste" instead of forcing them to stop innovating? Maybe they are forced to pay $0.05 (or more) per charger found in the waste. Those that have been collected are sent to the manufacturer for repurposing, at their cost.